


Best Thing Ever

by Mad_Maudlin



Category: Merlin - Fandom
Genre: Drug Use, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-23
Updated: 2010-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:57:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Maudlin/pseuds/Mad_Maudlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Gaius added, "And if your father asks about it, you didn't get it from me.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Thing Ever

Head injuries are the best thing ever, Merlin thinks hazily, or maybe not, because there was the spot of puking and shivering after Arthur lost his helmet in the melee--a stupid mistake, and one he's been absolving Merlin for every fifteen minutes since they locked the door. Gaius had given Arthur something for the headache and something for the puking and then, in an underhanded way, offered a small pouch of fine green dust, like oregano ground to a powder. "I know you probably don't feel like eating much at the moment, but you must keep your strength up. A pinch of this in your wine at dinner ought to help improve your appetite."

Gaius added, "And if your father asks about it, you didn't get it from me."

Merlin assumed at the time that meant it was magic; now he knows for a fact it's magic, the best magic ever, because once Arthur had taken a good sniff of the pouch he'd sent Merlin to scare up some pipes and proceeded to directly contravene the physician's orders.

"Don't go feeling guilty now," Arthur slurs out for the dozenth time, smiling crookedly with eyes more black than blue. "You shouldn't. I'm _quite_ all right."

"I know," Merlin says. Arthur is on bed rest, and so Merlin is laying horizontally across the bed and getting up has become a difficult abstraction. He slept here last night, but that was because Arthur needed to be awakened once an hour to make sure his brain wasn't bleeding, or so Gaius said; Gaius will probably not notice if Merlin is gone a second night in a row.

(Actually, Gaius will notice, and when Merlin slouches in mid-morning smelling like something that is definitely not oregano Gaius will contemplate, again, whether it wouldn't be wiser to just tie one or both of the fools to a chair until age thirty. He will not bring this up with the king, though. Yet.)

"No, really," Arthur says, and Merlin has no idea what he's talking about. "It was all a big misunderstanding. I deserved it, you know, for being so slow on the parry. It's only a flesh wound."

"What is?"

"What?"

"What?"

Merlin can't peel himself off the royal bed, but that's all right, because the pipe is right next to his head and he can just turn and take another pull of the sickly-sweet smoke.

"It's not very," Arthur says, and makes a vague, expressive gesture that threatens, again, to tip out his pipe on the duvet. His hands seem to have take on a life of their own since they started smoking, cutting his thoughts into the air around him as they only do when he's really drunk. Whereas Merlin feels deboned, Arthur is flushed and upright, as if he could explain the secrets of the universe if only he could finish a sentence.

Instead, he points at Merlin and says, "You."

"Me?"

"Yes." Arthur snaps at him. "Come on, then."

Merlin shakes his head. "Can't."

"That's an order!"

"I'm tired."

"I'm the bleeding Crown Prince!" Arthur reaches down and grabs Merlin by the arm, pulling at him, and Merlin tries to wrestle away, even though his limbs have lost all coordination, like a marionette with the strings all knotted. Both the pipes fall to the floor. In the end, Arthur is persistent but Merlin is heavy, and it's the bleeding Crown Prince who does most of the moving, practically climbing on top of Merlin and planting a hand on either side of his face.

"Hi," Arthur says with a little grin.

"What'd you want, then?" Merlin asks. It's not so bad, having Arthur laying on him, kind of like a blanket. A big heavy, blanket. That was sometimes a prat. If blankets could be described as prats...

"I forgot," Arthur says, which is okay because Merlin did, too.

But still, Arthur is on top of him; their legs got all tangled and they're pressed together from the belly down, and it's not bad. Maybe even kind of good. Merlin squirms a little, just trying to get comfortable. It takes a bit for him to realize that might've been a bad idea, on the grounds that his boneless body suggests that it was actually a really really good one, could we try that again?

And Arthur might not be able to finish his sentences at the moment, but he is not so far gone that he doesn't notice the lance currently attempting to gore him. (At least, Merlin thinks of it as more of a lance than a dirk.) Thankfully his response is a high-pitched giggle. "Oh, what's _this?"_ he asks, and shifts his weight so one of those talking hands can get between them and grab Merlin through his trousers. It wrings a squeak out of Merlin, and Arthur giggles again.

"You don't have to," Merlin says for some reason, not sure if he's feeling embarrassed or magnanimous or drowsy or what.

"Of course I don't," Arthur sighs. "I'm the _bleedin' Crown Prince."_

And then he kisses Merlin, and does it anyway. It's all a bit much to track at once: the tongue in his mouth as they pass the flavor of the smoke back and forth, the hand in his pants that's so nimble it could be giving its own lecture, Arthur's little grunts as he humps Merlin's thigh. Merlin thinks he should probably be participating a little more actively, somehow, that it would be fun or at least polite, but everything's blurring together. Everything has gone as soft and sweet as the rafts of smoke still hanging in the air, time is as jointless as he is, and for a moment he thinks that maybe they could stay like this forever.

Then he comes. A moment later, so does Arthur, a half-sentence dying something in the back of his throat, and he pulls his mouth off Merlin's to bury his face in the duvet.

"Wow," Merlin says, for lack of anything better, except maybe _Head injuries are the best thing ever_ (or maybe _I bet I can find where Gaius hides this stuff.)_

Next to him, Arthur starts to snore.


End file.
